Robert M. Metcalfe Biography

Robert Metcalfe is best known for his development of Ethernet and LAN technology as well as for founding the 3Com company.

Robert Metcalfe was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1946, although he grew up on Long Island. By the age of 10 he knew he wanted to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to study electrical engineering. He achieved this aim and graduated from MIT with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and business management in 1969. Metcalfe then moved to Harvard University where he received a master's degree in applied mathematics. He remained at Harvard, initially failing his Ph.D. in computer science in 1972. Metcalfe's thesis was on packet switching in ARPAnet (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network). In 1972 Metcalfe wrote a booklet detailing a range of uses for ARPAnet and a brief outline of how it worked. He then gave a demonstration of ARPAnet using packet switching to a number of officials from AT&T. The system crashed, confirming to the AT&T officials their belief that circuit switching was still the way of the future. In 1972 Metcalfe took a position at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (Xerox PARC) as a network expert. (He was advised that he could finish his doctoral studies at a later date.) At Xerox two problems were given to Metcalfe. First, Xerox had just invented the laser printer but they wanted to make a single printer accessible to all computers at the site. Second, Xerox had two large computers connected to ARPAnet, but they wanted all of their computers to have access. The same solution was the answer to both problems--a system that could connect all of the computers within the complex, which would allow access to the larger computers, and hence ARPAnet, and also to the laser printer. The solution was a local area network, or LAN, system. All of the local computers were connected together, which in turn were connected to the two larger computers, which were connected to ARPAnet. This system allowed everyone access to ARPAnet with only two connections. Metcalfe developed this system with the assistance of David R. Boggs and they called it Ethernet. One of the innovations of this system was that the information was sent in small packets with two-way communication between the computers. This meant a computer knew when another one was able to accept material, reducing the chance of collisions; when they did occur, only a small packet of information had to be resent, rather than a whole document. This system of limiting the number of collisions by assessing the level of traffic became the thrust of Metcalfe's new Ph.D. thesis and he was awarded his doctorate in 1973. In 1975 Metcalfe was made a consulting associate professor of electronic engineering at Stanford University, a position he kept along with his other duties until 1983 when he relinquished it. In 1976 Metcalfe and Boggs published Ethernet: Distributed Packet Switching for Local Computer Networks, which defined many of the operational parameters of Ethernet and LAN. This allowed the system to be readily adopted by any who wanted it.

In 1976 Metcalfe moved within Xerox to start work in the Xerox Systems Development Division. While in this position he was responsible for the development of the Xerox Star Workstation; this was the first personal computer to include a mouse, WYSIWYG ("What You See Is What You Get") word processing, and the Ethernet, along with software to allow text and graphics in the same document. In 1979 Metcalfe left Xerox to found his own company, the 3Com Corporation (the 3 "Com"s stand for Computers, Communication, and Compatibility). The aim of 3Com was to get Ethernet accepted as an industry standard in LAN. This aim was unsuccessful but it has become the most widely used LAN, with the system being adopted by such companies as Intel, Xerox, and Digital Equipment Corporation. In 1990 Metcalfe retired from 3Com and became a visiting fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge University, England. After one year Metcalfe returned to the United States where he took to journalism, writing for a number of technology and computer magazines. In 1993 Metcalfe became the vice president of the International Data Group.

The same packet communication work that led to Ethernet also made a major contribution to the TCP/IP protocol, of which Metcalfe was a co-creator. In 1993 Metcalfe was credited with formulating Metcalfe's law (first published in Forbes magazine) which states that "The value of a network increases with the square of the number of people connected to it."

Robert Metcalfe has developed a number of innovations that have made the Internet of today possible. For these he has been granted a number of awards including the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Medal of Honor, the Alexander Graham Bell Award, and the Association of Computer Machinery (ACM) Grace Murray Hopper Award. Metcalfe now divides his time between writing, organizing conferences, and his vice president position at the International Data Group. Robert Metcalfe also endowed the Robert Metcalfe Professorship in Writing at MIT in 1986.

Recent Updates

February 21, 2005: It was announced that Metcalfe will receive one of the National Medals of Technology at a White House ceremony in mid-March of 2005. The National Medal of Technology is the nation's highest honor for technology. It recognizes those who have made lasting contributions to America's competitiveness, standard of living, and quality of life through technological innovation, and those who have made substantial contributions to strengthening the nation's technological workforce. Source: National Academies, www.nationalacademies.org/headlines, February 21, 2005.